Patients who have cancer will often ask about their prognosis, or outlook, something that doctors usually express as a survival rate percentage. Not every patient wants to know the survival rate, however, not in the least because it is not an exact science, thereby potentially causing undue stress. If you do not want to know the leukemia cancer survival rate, therefore, please do not read on.
What Is the Leukemia Cancer Survival Rate?
When physicians discuss survival statistics and outlook, they use the so-called "five year survival rate". This is the percentage of people who have cancer and are still alive five years after they have been diagnosed. In the case of acute leukemia, children who do survive after five years are considered cured, because it is incredibly rare for leukemia to return after that length of time.
Generally speaking, the survival rate is based on figures collected from a large group of people who suffered from the disease. However, it is an indication only, and not an exact outcome for every single patient. Furthermore, the rates vary greatly depending on the type of leukemia. Other factors strongly influencing the leukemia cancer survival rate including the age of the patient and the characteristics of the specific type of leukemia that he or she has. These factors are known as the "prognostic factors" and if you do want your physician to tell you the rates, you must ask about those as well. Even when taking all the prognostic factors into consideration, survival rates continue to be an estimation only.
At present, the five year survival rates for leukemia cancers are based on patients who both received their initial diagnosis and their treatment five years ago. Five years is a long time in science, which means that the rate could be much higher now thanks to new advances in medical science.
Cancer Survival Rates:
The following figures indicate the currently accepted average survival rates for different types of leukemia:
1. For acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the survival rate is currently 85%, which is a substantial increase from the previous survival rate.
2. For acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), the current survival rate is between 60% and 70%, which also represents an increase since last time. However, there are different subtypes within AML, and these influence the survival rate. For instance, acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is very rare but has an 80%+ survival rate. Other subtypes have much lower survival rates.
3. For less common types of leukemia, there currently are no survival rate statistics.
4. For juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), the current survival rate is 50%.
5. For chronic leukemia, which is rare in children, the survival rates are very unhelpful, as many live for many years with the condition without being cured. For chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), the reported rate is between 60% and 80%, but these are not necessarily cured individuals. Furthermore, there have been many developments in medications for CML, so it is believed that the rates will be much higher at the next calculation.